


The Underground's Brightest Add to Their Phone Bills

by Geeneelee



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Violence, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geeneelee/pseuds/Geeneelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"WAIT, ALPHYS. I DIDN'T KNOW YOU KNEW SANS."  "Well... I..." "doesn't everybody?"</p><p>A friendship based on a gaping hole in your lives, secrets and morally questionable activities is bound to have some bumps in the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Underground's Brightest Add to Their Phone Bills

“hello?”

“I-I was in the la… I mean, u-uh, this is Alphys? Sans, this is Sans, r-right? I w-was looking through the directory, a-and…yeah.”

“yeah, this is the legend speaking. you were in my math class, right?”

“I w-was in most of your c-classes, Sans. We were b-both taking the highest level c-classes a few years back. Until you…uh….”

“a-yup, i finally fulfilled my true destiny: being a bonehead. those classes almost stopped me, but i managed some real stupidity in the end, and that’s what counts, yaknow?”

“Oh, j-just because you didn’t do- you didn’t make- you didn’t-“

“nah, i know bad grades don’t mean much, but i knew i was destined for mediocrity in my bones.”

“…W-well, your, uh, humor is th-the same as it ever was.”

“yup. Well, it was nice yakkin it up with you, al, but i’m a busy skeleton. got another nightclub to rattle. i’m skull-king backstage as we speak.”

“W-well good luck, it was pretty…hey! Wait! I was g-going to tell you s-something, but now I can’t re-“

“wouldn’t worry about it.”

“THE LAB! The lab, I-I saw… I found, I mean, there was- Y-you have to see!”

“…hey, al, i’m a busy. like i said.”

“Please, this is important. As soon as you can.”

“…fine. i’m off at ten, so be there then.”

“H-how long will it take you to get here?”

“it won’t. trust me.”

Alphys squinted at her phone’s clock in the dark. 10:01. Nervously, she scratched at her face; the phone was close to dead, and she didn’t want to bother Sans, but he hadn’t been all that clear about timing, but she didn’t want to risk calling him during a performance, but she had some wo-

“hey al.”

Alphys did a remarkable impression of bird monster, squawking at the newcomer. Her tail nearly whacked into Sans as she whipped around to face him, but he neatly side-stepped it and grinned. She attempted some apologies interspersed with bewilderment at his arrival, but he eventually cut her off mid stutter. “you had something to show me?”

She nodded, and gestured for him to follow. Claws clacked and feet shuffled through a few moments of awkward silence as she led him to the stairs and began the descent. “wouldn’t have thought the underground’s resident shy-nosaur would be snooping around in a restricted area.”

She tried to giggle. “W-well, the dump w-was pretty… it had pretty slim p-pickings today, and uh, I always just felt? Really comfortable here? And I was working on, uh, this thing? And I needed some uh circuitry a-and this s-seemed like a p-pretty good place??? So uh, I came, and, yeah,” she explained as they reached the bottom of the stairwell, and entered a dark, moldy lobby. Alphys started towards the door on the right, but stopped when she heard the shuffling feet behind her stop. She looked at Sans. The skeleton stood stock still, hands awkwardly crushed into his fraying dress pants, grin unnervingly tight, and eye-lights still. A nervous cough didn’t quite snap him out of it, but prompted him to start moving again, which Alphys hoped was enough.

The next room was even more unsightly than the last. The wallpaper was torn in many places and molding in the others, and some desks were scattered in a variety of positions, looking the worst for wear. Even the obviously fake plant had somehow managed to be withered. Alphys navigated the furniture graveyard to a small, relatively-preserved desk in the corner. Bending over, she lifted a small flap to reveal an extra drawer. Sans swore softly.

But not softly enough. Too quickly, Alphys postured up, banging her head on the lifted cover. 

“OW! OW??? OW! Ow…Sans, did y-you say something?” Sans muttered a quick denial while Alphys rubbed her tender crest. Eventually, she dropped her hands back to the desk and began to carefully jostle the drawer.

“I was looking through some of the drawers for a-any stray parts, that, might’ve, uh, been left? But there weren’t really many things. Or any things. Everything was empty. And, uh, I w-was just going to go home after I checked this desk, but my, my c-claw got stuck on the cover, so I found this…” She tried to open the drawer, but it was still stuck. After a quick thump, the drawer cooperated. Sans came over and looked over her shoulder; there was a document labelled “TOP SECRET”. She stared anxiously, before continuing. “And this.” Under the first document, she revealed another document, labelled “BOTTOM SECRET.” She held them up to his pained face, then cringed at his expression. Quickly she looked away, and instead began to flip through the pages. 

“I started reading, and at first I was looking at the last projects the people who were here were working on. It was incredible! The intricacy, the scope… I couldn’t understand all of the terms, but it was some incredible stuff! I started to wonder… why I’d never heard of them? Or… anything about this lab at all? You’d think, that, uh, something? We’d know something? And then…” she gulped, her hands shaking. “Then I g-got to the personnel list, the p-people assigned t-to these projects. A lot of the names w-were, uh, pretty unreadable, b-b-but, uh… W-we were both l-listed as interns. H-how is that p-possible? No one’s used this l-l-lab f-f-for years! I d-don’t remember w-w-working here! I d-d-don’t remember any of this!”

She held up the offending documents to Sans’ face and shook them wildly, until she noticed that his eyes were completely dark. Instinctively, Alphys took a step back and shook harder.

“maybe you don’t remember… Because you shouldn’t.”

He was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore Sans and Alphys' implied (platonic) relationship, Sans' dickish secrecy from a non-Papyrus perspective, and that Alphys almost certainly ~knew Gaster as well. Thus, this fic was born. Huzzah! I'd like to thank my friend Drakka for reading this over. This fic will span both before, during and after the main game, and explore several of the in-game timelines.


End file.
